Re: Wishes Have Aftershock Tremors (Kiriyama)
“What are we going to do with him?” Hojo asked, jauntily crossing the length of the room and picking up Con’s unconscious form with ease. “Your father always enjoys punishing thieves by sawing off their hands and dipping the stumps into a salt and vinegar solution. He gets the perfect reaction every time. The hardiest men weep like dying babies under such treatment.”
“No,” Lai said, repulsed by the casual smirk on Hojo’s lips. He wasn’t disgusted because of his servant’s joy in the subject, of course. He was merely repulsed by the idea that the lust demon would actually settle for such a simple brand of pain. “I don’t feel like torturing him, and you of all people should know that I wouldn’t do anything that would make people think me akin to my father.”
Hojo rolled his eyes and shifted the brown-haired man to his shoulder. Unlike Lailoken, he had the utmost respect for King Elijah. The King was a man of innumerable good qualities in his eyes. Elijah was strong, prideful, handsome, ruthless, and by far the most successful ruler in the fifth layer of the Underworld. He was a golden idol deserving of limitless praise and fear. He was a-
“Bastard,” Letho said dryly, slowly shaking her head and joining Lai. Like her master she had no love for King Elijah. She could still remember the ruler’s snide comments about how she was the least attractive slave for sale, and how that meant she was perfect for his illegitimate son. The nether had immediately set her free upon receiving her, and offered her a position as a paid servant, rather than a pitiful slave.
“Excuse me?” Hojo said, following them into the hall and down the stairs, undoubtedly heading to the basement-level dungeon. “King Elijah is the greatest ruler in the history of existence, the sexiest flame incubus ever, and the strongest demon in the Underworld. Have you already forgotten all the times he’s beaten your bony ass, Lai?”
“Have you forgotten that he permanently bonded you to that tuxedo?” Lai retorted venomously, slightly quickening his pace. There were two things he hated talking about, and his servant had touched upon both of them in one glorious moment of idiocy: His father, and his past failures.
The lust demon reacted as though the prince’s words had taken physical form and punched him in the stomach, taking all of his temporary malice and converting it into blinding pain. The moment passed and Hojo’s own malice bubbled to the surface, twisting his face into a furious scowl.
“He did that for good reason, and he’ll undo it eventually! You, on the other hand, will never escape your current predicament! You’re always going to be a bastard prince, even after Elijah dies! One of your siblings will take the throne, and then another, and then another!”
Pyrrhus spun on his heel and faced his servant, his eyes shadowed and hiding an inner flame. Hojo stopped and bent down to reach eye-level with Lai, who was exactly a foot shorter than the lust demon, and spoke in a whisper that never reached the marginally frightened Letho’s ears.
“Even your sibling’s children will be higher up on the line of succession than you,” he hissed, his own inner fire apparent in his eyes. He didn’t quite hate Lai, but he’d never let anybody get away with insulting the brave King Elijah. “And you know why? Because you’re dirt. Hell, Letho should be a higher ranked demon than you, and her mom was a slave-producing whore. It’s because you’re part human. That’s why you fell for that human ***** that’s got you so de-”
Thwap! The prince’s fist connected with Hojo’s jaw and sent him reeling, very nearly dropping Con in his mad fight to keep his balance. After a few seconds of teetering and dancing, he regained his footing and rose to his full height.
“Lai,” he said, the fire gone. The punch knocked away whatever anger he’d had for the prince. In its place came pity for the dreadlocked boy before him. Hojo knew what it was like to lose somebody important, and had forgotten how much the human girl meant to Pyrrhus. He reached his free hand out to touch his master’s shoulder, only for it to be brushed away with a flaming hatred that he could feel emanating from the hybrid’s very pores.
“Shut up,” Lai said, shrugging away Letho’s hand when she too went to touch his shoulder. He pushed past Hojo, again causing him to go into a teetering dance, and walked up to his room with a small trail of flame left in his wake. His servants exchanged glances and resumed their trek to the dungeon.
~
“You’re a dick, you know that?” Letho said, unlocking the solid cast-iron door and opening it for her colleague. Hojo walked into the small cell and gently laid Con on the solitary cot. Lai’s female servant almost considered closing the door and locking him in with the thief. Lord knew he deserved it.
The lust demon joined her outside of the cell and let her close and lock the door before speaking, somewhat afraid of her pushing him in and doing exactly what he guessed her to be considering. Once he heard the heavy clicks and clangs of the door’s two locks moving into place, he decided it was safe to speak. He sighed and brushed at his hair with his palm.
“I know, I know. You know how much I like King Elijah though,” he said, perhaps trying to convince her that he’d been properly provoked. She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. The gesture made him wince, despite the fact that he was larger and stronger than her.
“We all know about your man-crush Hojo. You shouldn’t have said whatever you said to him though,” she scorned him, looking at him with a look of tired annoyance behind her wire-rim glasses. “You should go apologize to him. Maybe make up for it somehow.”
The elder demon sighed and nodded. He suddenly took Letho’s keys and opened the cell, strolling in and grabbing the prisoner before his fellow servant could react. Hojo walked out and tossed the keys back to her. In her state of shock she forgot everything she knew about catching, and the keys accidentally struck a small breast before falling to the floor, jangling noisily all the way.
“What are you doing?” she finally asked, kneeling down to pick the keys up. Her fellow demon merely walked off and left her to wonder. She wouldn’t find out about Hojo’s idea until it was too late to stop it from changing their lives.
~
Lai sat on a large shield, still unable to find his coffin under all the clutter, and quietly gulped down a bag of stale pretzels. The salty treats hit his tongue tastelessly and were redirected to his gullet, where they were swallowed in their un-chewed state. Pyrrhus nearly choked several times, but continued to eat.
His eyes were trained on a particularly sharp spear lying under a pile of junk, its head the only completely visible part, defiantly poking out from the clutter. He pondered over whether he could smack the pointy object with his head hard enough to puncture his skull. A sudden knock on his door prevented him from finding out the answer, thankfully.
Lailoken stood up and dragged his feet over to the door, unmindful of all the sharp objects he was cutting his feet on, and opened the door to find an unconscious man with a note taped to his chest. Pyrrhus knelt down and looked about, finding nobody in the hallway. He reached out and plucked the piece of paper from Con’s chest, and it only took a moment for him to recognize the handwriting as Hojo’s.
Lai,
I know where the Wishmaster is. He is currently in a barren area in Red Hill, where it rains ash. Whether the rain is a geographical feature or merely a phenomena that follows him, I don’t know. I’m sure you remember how he requires things in exchange for wishes, no?
Well, I know you don’t have anything that he’d find useful, so how about this thief? Offer him as a slave. It’s much better than simply cutting his hands off, am I right? This way you can punish a thief AND get your wish, whatever that may be.
- Always your faithful servant, Hojo.
~
And so, that was how Lai came to drag a thieving conman, unconscious and stuffed in a burlap sack, through an ash-laden wasteland. His bare feet left hollow prints that were quickly wiped away by the bag he pulled with one hand. His other hand was busy wiping ash from his hair and pant-legs.
“What if you’re making a mistake?” an imaginary voice, perhaps his remaining doubt, said. “You can’t go through with this. There are less dangerous ways of getting rid of your pain.”
The prince shook his head and cleared his mind of the voice. This was the only way to be rid of his pain, and he didn’t care what any imaginary voice in the back of his mind told him. He trudged onward through the ash in search of anything that stood out in the dreary landscape…